1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a pager, namely, a terminal device suitable for use in the case where a setting is changed by radio in order to receive new information services and to a method of setting such a terminal device. More particularly, the invention relates to a trouble notice in case of a failure of the setting.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, a pager is used for receiving a call from a partner or receiving personal messages. However, in recent years, the pager is used not only in a field of receiving a call from the partner or receiving personal messages but also in a field of receiving information service messages such as news, weather report, and the like. The number of information service messages which are provided by the pager is increasing. The pager is being used as a portable information terminal which can easily access to various information by being carried outdoors.
To enable the information services to be used by the pager as mentioned above, it is necessary to change set information on the pager side. The change of the set information on the pager side has hitherto been performed at a sales store or a service store of the pager.
That is, as information services which are provided by the pager, various services such as traffic information, sales information, stock information, travel information, and the like as well as general information such as news and weather report are taken into consideration. The information services which are provided by the pager are informed by, for example, a guidebook or a brochure which is distributed by a service company of the pager, a magazine, a webpage of the Internet, or the like.
When the user of the pager wants to receive new information service messages by watching the guidebook or brochure distributed by the service company of the pager, magazine, webpage of the Internet, or the like, he brings his own pager to a sales store or a service store of the pager. At the sales store or service store of the pager, the setting of the pager is changed so that new information service messages can be received.
However, the number of information services which are provided by the pager is increasing day by day. Therefore, in the case where the user brings the pager to the sales store or service store of the pager and requests the service person to change the setting of the pager in order to receive new information service messages, it results in a large burden to both the user and the sales store or service store of the pager.
To prevent it, changing of the setting of the pager by messages by radio in a manner similar to the normal messages is taken into consideration.
That is, when the user of the pager wants to receive new information service messages, he calls a service center of the pager or takes a procedure for receiving new information service messages from the webpage of the Internet or sends its fact by E-mail.
After completion of such a telephone or a procedure on the Internet, messages including a terminal setting command and terminal setting data are transmitted by radio to the pager of the user from a management company of the pager in accordance with a request on the user side. When the pager of the user receives the messages including the terminal setting command and terminal setting data, the pager is set on the basis of the terminal setting command and terminal setting data. Thus, the new information service messages can be received.
If the messages including the terminal setting command and terminal setting data are sent from the management company of the pager by radio as mentioned above, when the user joins the new information services, the user does not need to bring the pager to the sales store or service store of the pager.
However, when the messages including the terminal setting command and terminal setting data are sent to the pager of the user and the setting of the pager of the user is changed as mentioned above, there is a case where the setting change has failed. If the setting has failed, the user notifies the pager management company of the fact that the setting was failed by telephone or E-mail.
When the management company of the pager is notified of the failure of the setting as mentioned above, if the details indicative of the reasons of the occurrence of an error are also sent, the management company side of the pager can rapidly takes a countermeasure against the inconvenience. In the conventional pager, however, when the setting has failed, the details of the error are obscure. On the management company side of the pager, even if the information indicative of the failure of the setting was received from the user, if the detailed information of the error is not known, the countermeasure against the error is delayed.
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to provide a terminal device in which a setting of a terminal is performed on the basis of received messages and, when the setting of the terminal has failed, a countermeasure against such an inconvenience can be rapidly taken and to provide a setting method of such a terminal device.
According to a preferred aspect of the invention, there is provided a terminal device comprising: message receiving means for receiving transmitted messages; terminal changing means for, when the received message is a message for setting a terminal, changing the setting of the terminal on the basis of the received message for setting the terminal; and display means for, when the change of the setting of the terminal has failed, forming information indicative of the failure and/or information showing causes of the failure and displaying the information.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of setting a terminal device, comprising the steps of: receiving transmitted messages; when the received message is a message for setting a terminal, changing the setting of the terminal on the basis of the received message for setting the terminal; and when the change of the setting of the terminal has failed, displaying information indicative of the failure and/or information showing causes of the failure.
In case of changing the setting of the terminal, the message for setting the terminal is sent by radio. A command and data for setting the terminal, a text for success of the setting, and a text for failure of the setting are included in the message for setting the terminal. When the message for setting the terminal is received, the setting of the terminal is performed on the basis of the command and data for setting the terminal included in the message. When the setting is successful, the text for success of the setting is displayed. When the setting has failed, the text for failure of the setting is displayed and the information showing the causes of the error is displayed. When the setting of the terminal has failed, since the information showing the causes of the error is displayed, it is possible to rapidly cope with the inconvenience.
By constructing the information showing the causes of the error by the command for setting the terminal and a return code returned after the command was executed, there is no need to particularly form the information showing the causes of the error.
Although the distribution of the message to the terminal device is performed by radio or by using a wire such as a network cable or the like, the invention can be applied to both distributing means.